Varna Archaeological Museum: the gold, opening hours and tickets

The Varna Archaeological Museum, at 41 Maria Luiza Boulevard, holds the gold of the Varna Necropolis, the oldest worked gold known anywhere. Tickets cost €10 for adults and €4 for pupils, and children under 7 go free. Until the end of April it opens 10:00–17:00 and closes on Sunday and Monday (official museum site, as of 2 November 2026). Tickets are sold only at the box office in the foyer. The museum does not sell them online, so ignore resellers that offer “entry tickets”.

Opening hours and tickets (as of 2026-11-02)

The museum is part of the Regional History Museum Varna, which publishes its hours and prices in euro:

Winter (October–April)	10:00–17:00, closed Sunday and Monday
Summer (May–September)	10:00–17:00, every day
Adults	€10
Pupils	€4
Archaeology students	€5
Adults in groups over 15	€8 each
Children under 7	free
Guided talk (up to 50 people)	€30

Entry is also free on days set by an order of the Ministry of Culture or Varna Municipality; they are announced on museumvarna.com. Last winter all the museum’s sites closed from 24 December 2025 to 4 January 2026 (museum notice), so check for a similar break before a holiday visit. For the other city museums, see our Varna museums hours and prices table.

What is in the museum?

The displays are arranged in date order. They follow the Varna region from the Old Stone Age to the Middle Ages (Visit Varna). Highlights:

• The Varna Necropolis gold. From 294 graves came more than 3,000 gold objects weighing over 6 kg. They date to about 4600–4200 BC and fill three halls of the museum. The full story of the find is on our Varna Necropolis page.
• Stone Age and Copper Age halls. Visit Varna describes the Mesolithic flint tools here as the largest such collection in south-east Europe.
• Thracian, Greek and Roman Odessos. Ancient Varna was the Greek colony of Odessos, and the museum covers the Thracian, Greek and Roman periods (Wikipedia). The halls hold terracotta figures, tombstone reliefs, lamps and glass vessels. Visit Varna calls each of these the largest collection of its kind in Bulgaria. Read more in our history of Varna.
• Coins and the medieval period. On show are more than 2,000 ancient and medieval coins, early forms of money and stone inscriptions from the Bulgarian state. Visit Varna also names the country’s largest collections of early Bulgarian belt decorations and of jewellery from the Second Bulgarian Empire (1185–1393).
• Icons. Bulgarian icons from the 14th to the 19th century, including work from the Tryavna school of icon painting. Visit Varna ranks the collection second in Bulgaria, after the National Museum of History in Sofia.

A temporary multimedia exhibition on the Temple of Cybele from ancient Dionysopolis (today’s Balchik) opened here on 2 October 2026. Ask at the desk whether it is still on.

The building

The museum is housed in the former Varna Girls’ High School. It was built in 1892–1898 to a design by the architect Petko Momchilov, in a late-baroque style with two floors and a basement around a large inner courtyard. A corridor runs right round the building and leads into the halls, and some rooms still have their painted decoration. A room in the school was set aside for the collections in 1902, the museum’s first exhibition opened here in 1906, and since 1993 the museum has used the whole building (museum history). The foyer has the ticket and information desk and a shop for books and souvenirs. According to Wikipedia, the museum also has a café, and its courtyard lapidarium hosts the Varna Summer International Jazz Festival.

How long to allow and how to get there

The exhibition covers 2,150 m² on two floors. We suggest at least two hours, and more if you want to read the labels in the gold halls. The museum is in the city centre. Visit Varna lists buses 7, 12, 31, 31A and 148 to the Muzeya stop and buses 9, 14 and 409 to Sevastopol. Check current routes on Varna Traffic.

Guided tours

The museum offers its own guided talk (€30 for up to 50 people), which you can ask for at the desk. Some guided city tours also include the museum; you can find and book them on GetYourGuide through the link on this page. A tour bought there is a separate service from the museum ticket, so check whether entry is included before you pay. To fit the museum into a day out, see our top 10 sights in Varna.